February 15th, 2019 – Short Walk.
The snow this week continued to fall and we continued to shovel. However, we were unable to walk most days due to cold temperatures and too much snow on the ground.
When the snow finally stopped on February 11th, we reached a total snowfall for the month of 20.2 inches. According to the National Weather Service, this is the 8th snowiest month in Seattle since records have been kept.
We are only half way through the month, but no snow is in the forecast. Ok, for the U.S., Tamarack, California, holds the record for the most snow in a calendar month with 390 inches (32.5 feet) in January 1911. Ok, that’s like, almost 20 times what we had, but we aren’t prepared with the snowplows to handle 20 inches of snow. Ok, Tamarack probably didn’t have snowplows.
We went for a short, two-mile walk in the middle of the day, but the sidewalks were still snow-covered and we needed to walk in the street. The road down the hill to Riverside Drive has been closed, so we decided to walk down and see what the issue was. We saw a couple of trees and several branches that were down due to the heavy snow, but the road was clear. The snow was covering the sides of the road and, probably a bunch of trash. The only trash we found on the hill was a can lid.
After we came back up the hill, and down to the end of 112th Ave NE, we found more trash and McDonalds bags.
We did find a ball. 
We put it in our bag, but somehow it disappeared.
Last summer, the city meticulously glued Botts’ dots and reflectors along the road over Norway Hill. During the storm they not-so-meticulously removed them. 
We picked up 33 unbroken dots and reflectors on our short walk and many more broken ones. There will be more as the snow continues to melt.
February 18th, 2019 – Safeway Route, almost.
We have been monitoring the sidewalk snow conditions and decided it was time to venture out today. We left the house at 1:00 PM with the temperature at a balmy 37F. Since it has been a long time since we last walked we expected a lot of trash. Fortunately, the Garbage Service has not picked up garbage for two weeks, so there were plenty of trash and recycle bins left out for us to dump our heavy finds.
We walked our Safeway Route, but didn’t make it all the way to Safeway before the sidewalks became unwalkable for us.
We continued to find more of the reflectors and dots like we found on our previous short walk. Here is a then and now photo of the same stretch of road. 
The photo on the left was taken on August 30th, 2018 after the dots were installed and the one on the right was taken today. At least the painted markers are still there. We don’t know how many we picked up, but we emptied our bag into garbage cans several times and ended up at home with two shopping bags full of them. They are deceptively heavy.
But we found a lot of other trash also. Someone lost their license plate. 
The first time we found a license plate, we took it to one of the licensing offices and they thanked us and said they give them to the Boy Scouts to recycle. Since then, we bypass the middle man and put them in our recycle.
And someone also lost a moon hubcap. 
It was in fairly good condition, but got recycled also.
We found another tool. 
But it was rusty and we didn’t know what it was anyway.
We found a good pair of nonprescription reading glasses. 
Another pair for Janet to misplace.
We found a catnip cat toy mouse. 
It wasn’t in very good condition. Probably why the cat got rid of it.
We also found two dog balls. 
Toys, not the other kind. No, not toys like little dogs. Never mind. The one on the left is in our ball collection and the one on the right disappeared somewhere along the line. We probably accidently dumped it into someone’s recycle bin.
Someone tossed their car audio cassette adaptor. 
We’ve tried these adaptors. We got rid of ours’ also. No, not out the car window.
We found a penny exposed by the melting snow. 
Maybe as the snow melts, we’ll get rich!
We saw the RockStar Energy Drink logo on a decal. 
For once, it was not on a discarded can.
We saw a snow boot. 
Well, we thought it was clever.
We found some doggie bags. 
They were at a very appropriate location.
And our regulars didn’t disappoint. As we passed Gatorade Gully, we found two Gatorade Butt-Bottles. 
They were very near the road within easy reach. There are probably more in the gully, but there is too much snow to descend at this time.
And, of course we spotted something far down from the road and it turned out to be, 
the McLitterers. It had the standard contents, but we didn’t find the tea cups.
Finally, we found some prescription drugs. 
The bottle was unopened and still had the safety seal. We looked it up on WebMD; it is used to treat cold sores caused by herpes simplex, chickenpox, shingles, and genital herpes. Eeew! Glad we wear rubber gloves.
Trash Walking 